Incarnadine
by whisperitonce
Summary: Angel found her. But will Mark be the one to save her? And what does she need saving from?First fic, so reviews are appreciated.
1. It Never Gets Easier

Disclaimer: I don't own the Rent characters, the brilliant Jonathan Larson does. The much less brilliant me owns Elisha.

Summary: The family has dealt with a lot of "taboo" things, as we hear in La Vie Boheme. But this wasn't mentioned. Is something like this beyond the understanding of even the starving artists, the HIV , the lesbians, gays, cross dressers, and the drug addicts? We shall see.

Takes place New Year's Eve, and for the sake of the story Benny hasn't taken Mark and Roger's stuff out of the loft.

"Maureen, give me back my camera, this isn't my Bar Mitzvah!" Mark Cohen whined. Maureen giggled and played keep away from Mark as the group made their way back toward Mark, Roger, and Mimi's building. Roger walked with his arm draped around Mimi, and Collins was happy as long as his Angel was with him. Even Joanne was in too good a mood to get jealous of Maureen's flirtatious behavior with Mark.

Suddenly, Angel stopped.

"Wait, everybody quiet, hold on a second." Angel said. Surprisingly, everyone shut up briefly, at least enough for Angel to confirm to herself that she had indeed heard something coming from the nearby alley. She shuddered, remembering the state Collins had been in when she found him in that self-same alley.

"What is it baby?" Collins asked.

"Someone's hurt in the alley." Angel stated matter-of-factly as she turned and hurried toward the barely audible sound of a person moaning. The rest of the group quit their banter and quickly followed. They all stopped short behind Angel, who was crouching next to the semi-conscious body of a fairly young girl. She was small, and looked sick. It was hard to guess her age. Her clothes were dirty and ripped, but the rips were fresh looking and not the natural tatters that come from living on the streets of Alphabet City. She looked weak, but not beaten as Collins had been, though in the dark it was easy to miss the dried blood on her sleeve. Of course she could have by all means been a street child. The all gaped slightly at the pathetic sight, unsure of what to do. Finally, it was Mark who spoke up.

"Let's get her inside, we may not have heat but we can warm her up with blankets, at least enough to get her conscious and talking to us."

"Whoa, wait, hold it there," Roger interjected, looking apprehensive. "I wasn't aware I agreed to bringing in some random stray." It sounded cold and callous, but really, after April, Roger just wasn't sure he could handle another death in the apartment, even of a girl he didn't know.

Mark glared at his roommate, confused. Mimi too looked shocked at his cold-hearted behavior. Sure Roger was detached sometimes, but he wasn't a mean person.

"So you'd rather leave her here to die? I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have that guilt." Mark countered.

Roger hesitated, then nodded, resigned. Collins lifted the girl without trouble, and with Mimi and Angel right next to him, looking concerned, he carried her all the way up the stairs to the loft.


	2. What I Know

The girl coughed, deeply and painfully, as Collins placed her on Mark and Roger's couch. She started awake as Mark entered with two of his heaviest blankets.

The first words out of her mouth, as quiet and raspy as they were: "Oh fuck." She groaned and tried to sit up.

"Shh, its ok, just lay down Honey," Angel said sweetly as the rest gathered around. Too weak to disagree, the girl collapsed back into the cushions.

"Sweetheart," Joanne said gently, "you're in pretty bad shape there. Can you tell us your name, where you're from? How old you are?"

With that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, the girl finally muttered "Elisha. Um, or Ellie." Then let out another bout of coughing. Only Mark noticed that she had purposefully avoided the age and origin questions.

Joanne gestured for the group to move away from this girl –Ellie's- earshot, and she quietly explained in her logical lawyer voice: "We need to find out more about her before we decide a course of action. Obviously, in her condition, we can't just throw her out the door and wish her luck. My best guess is that she's a runaway, but if she's not 18 yet its risky for us to keep her here, it could be considered kidnap. Then again, if she ran away because of abuse, we should take her to a shelter or something. And there could be people out there worried about her."

Mark glanced at the frail creature, passed out again but shivering under blankets on his couch. Then he turned back to the group. "I'll talk to her, but we should make her comfortable first, clean her up a little. She's a mess. You guys go home, its late. Or should I say early. Get some sleep, then come back later. We'll get this figured out."

Maureen, Joanne, Collins, and Angel all slowly nodded their agreement, suddenly realizing how exhausted they were. Mimi leaned against Roger. "I'll stay," she offered. "She'll probably want a girl to help her get cleaned up, instead of Mark and Roger. And I might have some clothes she can wear, though they'll be way long on her."

Roger hugged Mimi and Mark gave her an appreciative glance, before going back to the couch and whispering something to Ellie. The rest bid their goodbyes and rather solemnly filed out of the loft.


	3. Hold On

Mimi returned with clothes for Elisha just as Mark finished heating some water. Mimi took the bowl of water and a washcloth from Mark. "You two go in the other room," she ordered. "I'll let you back in when I have her cleaned up. Maybe I can figure out what happened to her."

Mark and Roger left the room as Mimi turned to the girl unconscious on the couch. She wet the washcloth and gently began to wipe the dirt from Ellie's face. Her hand brushed skin that was very warm. _She definitely has a fever. _Ellie stirred slightly, and coughed pathetically. Mimi frowned. This girl did not sound good. _Could she have AIDS too? _She wondered.She couldn't possibly be more than 18 years old, if she was even that. _If she does have HIV, I wonder how she got it, _Mimi thought. She moved to take Ellie's shirt off, both so she could clean her and put on the new clothes and so she could check for the tell-tale track marks of a heroin junkie. If she was a junkie, they could take her to a rehab place and move on with their lives relatively free of guilt.

What Mimi discovered under those long and worn-thin sleeves puzzled her immensely. The flesh was scarred, that was obvious. But not from drug usage, or at least those were unlike any track marks Mimi had every seen. Thin scars, dozens of them and in varying degrees of healing, marched parallel to each other up both Ellie's arms. On her left wrist, a two inch long, ragged edged cut still seeped a little blood. Immediately Mimi's concern for this girl and curiosity were spiked. _Failed suicide attempt? _Mimi thought. _But no, there are too many marks and they aren't bad enough… No one is stupid enough to think that those cuts could kill them. What then? Abuse? _As Mimi puzzled this over in her head, she stopped the bleeding from the one cut and finished cleansing and dressing Ellie, who had done naught but moan a few times during the whole process and was still sleeping, albeit fitfully.

Mimi finished up and tucked the blankets back around the girl, and went to get Mark and Roger. She wasn't sure she wanted to tell Roger what she had discovered about this Elisha person. Anyone with a slit wrist was likely to make him think of April, and the last thing Mimi wanted to do was cause Roger pain when things has been going so well for them. But the girl obviously needed help. _I'll tell Mark, _Mimi decided. _And he can decide if he wants to enlighten Roger on their troubled little house guest._


	4. I'll Stand By You

Mimi cleaned up the mess from the water and washcloths, and did her best to fold the torn clothing. She checked to make sure Elisha was still sleeping, then went to fetch Mark and Roger.

"Rog, why don't you go make us some coffee or something?" she hinted. Unfortunately, Roger was too smart for that gimmick. He gave Mimi a curious look. _Just let me talk to Mark alone, _her eyes implored her boyfriend.

"Whatever you're going to tell Mark you might as well tell me too. It's my place as much as it is his, so I should know what we've gotten ourselves into with this girl." Roger reasoned. With that, he planted himself stubbornly next to Mark and looked at Mimi expectantly.

"Ooo-kay," Mimi exhaled slowly. "First off, she's running a fever and her cough does not sound good. I wouldn't be surprised if she has the virus. But there was something else." She gave Roger a sidelong glance, then addressed the next part to Mark. "There's a cut on her wrist. Pretty deep, if I'd had to guess. It was still bleeding when I changed her shirt." She looked to Roger again, but now he was staring vacantly at the lump of blankets on the couch that were almost completely burying Elisha.

"Of course, there's no way of telling if it was accidental or not," Mimi added quickly, and mostly for Roger's benefit. Then she turned back to Mark. "The cut isn't what's been bugging me though. It's the scars. Her arms are covered in these lines of scar tissue. The lines are parallel to each other and they just look so… organized. Not like marks from shooting up or anything. It's like nothing I've ever seen before."

Done with her report, Mimi waited for one of the guys to say something. Mark was frowning now, and seemed very intent on examining his cuticles. Roger finally focused back to Mimi.

"Another mystery to solve about her, on top of finding out where the hell she's from and why a girl her age was on the verge of death in an alley off Avenue A. I don't think she's a street kid, or at least she hasn't been one for long. I guess there's no chance of getting out of this now. Fine. We'll help her however we can." Roger wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he was kind of curious now too. They had barely learned her name, but he found himself very upset at the thought of this girl dying. _Strange, _he thought to himself.

Mark, whose interest in the state of his fingernails had apparently been abetted, looked up at Mimi. "When she wakes up in the morning, I'll get her to talk to me. I'll do it alone, because she'll probably get intimidated if we're all questioning her. Especially since she doesn't even know who we are. I'll see if I can find out anything about her and get this straightened out." His voice brooked no argument. Roger gave his roommate a surprised look. Since when did Mark, the filmmaker, the one who just liked to observe people, the "detached" one, care so much about a stranger? Yet another mystery. This night was full of 'em. What a way to start off the New Year.

Roger gave his roommate and best friend a kind smile. "We'll work it out together. Like I said, it's my loft too. You don't have to save everyone Mark, at least not by yourself."

Mark did not respond to Roger's comment. "I'm going to bed." He stated instead. It was already 6:00 in the morning. "Roger- take your AZT, ok?"

Roger rolled his eyes and turned to walk Mimi down to her apartment.

Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! I will try to keep updating consistently, as long as school and work (and of course watching Rent on DVD) don't get in the way!

Next chapter: Will Elisha open up to Mark? And why is he so sure that she will?


	5. Last Resort

About three hours later, still tired but unable to sleep any more, Mark stumbled out of his room. He was surprised to see Ellie

, who had been so close to death only hours ago, sitting up on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest and apparently very lost in thought.

He cleared his throat, and she jumped about a mile. She looked scared, but almost immediately her fear turned to anger. She lashed out.

"Look, I have no idea who you are, but you don't need to help me, ok? I'm not your cause, and I can take care of myself." She might have gone on, but she was stopped by her own hacking cough. She eased back into the couch cushions, looking spent.

Anyone else might have gotten angry at her completely ungrateful attitude, but Mark just looked sad. Her outburst had only reaffirmed his certainty the he could help this girl. He sat down on the couch, next to her but not too close.

"My name is Mark," he offered. "I live here, with my friend Roger. My friends and I found you in the alley last night pretty near death."

"Then you should have let me died!" She exclaimed. She began to cry quietly.

"None of us wanted to do that." He left it at that. "If I tell you about myself and my friends, then will you tell me about yourself?" He was trying hard to reach out here, and not just slip back into detached filmmaker mode.

"You're not going to let me leave, are you?" She said, brushing her tears away forcefully. She hugged the blankets closer as she had started to shake again. "Fine. Enlighten me."

"Well, like I said, I'm Mark. I like to film things, I guess you could call it my job. Angel is the one who found you last night. He… er, she… well, Angel is with my friend Collins. Roger is a songwriter, and my roommate. His girlfriend, Mimi, lives downstairs. She's the one who got you cleaned up."

Ellie's minimal reaction was to pull the sleeves of the borrowed shirt down over her fingers. Mark continued. "Mimi is a dancer, at the Catscratch Club. Maureen is my ex-girlfriend, and Joanne is her girlfriend. Joanne is also a lawyer. We thought she might be able to help you…" No reaction from Elisha.

"Also, Roger, Mimi, Collins, and Angel are HIV positive." At this, Ellie's eyes flew up to meet Mark's. Her teary eyes held the gaze for a second, then averted.

Mark knew he had to tread carefully now if he wanted her to open up to him.

"You have AIDS, don't you?" He asked, in the kindest tone he could.

"I don't know" She whispered. She really didn't, she hadn't been tested. But it was possible. How astute this Mark guy was.

"Your turn," Mark said. "How old are you, Ellie?"

"17."

"Do you have parents?" This elicited a small nod of affirmation. "Don't you think they're worried? How long have you been missing?"

"They don't- they can't- know I'm missing." She muttered. Mark looked confused. "I go… er, went… to NYU." She tried to elaborate.

"Wow. You're 17 and already in college? You must be pretty smart." Ellie shrugged off the compliment.

"My parents think I'm at school, and people at school think I'm home visiting my parents. That's what I told them anyway. This way, no one knows I screwed up. They still think I'm perfect," she finished in a whisper.

Mark's heart was breaking for this girl. God, he certainly knew how it felt to think of everyone else's feelings first. How frustrating and tiring it could get. She had definitely covered all her bases before disappearing… but why did she feel the need to disappear at all?

"You wanna tell me why you ran away?" Mark asked. "Mimi saw your scars, you know," he offered as a starting point. She didn't look at him, but he saw a tear fall from her face to the blanket.

Her breathing was starting to sound labored. There was a long pause. Just when Mark was thinking she had shut off, that she wasn't going to answer any more questions, she said softly "I did it myself. I cut myself." She looked up now, expectantly, seeming to think Mark was going to looked shocked or freaked out, maybe even kick her out.

"You shouldn't do that to yourself." He simply said.

She gave a bitter laugh. "Are you going to lecture me?" She was now in full defensive mode. She'd been through this crap before, psychiatrists, therapists, anything her parents could buy to "fix" their little girl.

"No, I'm not going to lecture you," Mark said simply. "That would make me a hypocrite."


	6. Dirty Little Secret

"You?" Elisha said in surprise.

"Thought you were the only one, huh?" Mark asked. "Yeah. I haven't for about two years now though. It's hard to stop." He gave a rueful laugh. "Man, is it hard. And it's harder when you don't have anyone you can talk to."

"Yeah well…" Elisha trailed off. She toyed with the fringe on one of the blankets she was enshrouded in.

"What?" Mark asked.

"I don't even know if I should have told you. Telling someone my problems is pretty much what got me into this mess in the first place." She sighed. Then she coughed painfully for a good thirty seconds. Mark got up to get her some water.

"Wanna tell me what happened?" He asked, handing her the glass. "If you don't its ok, I don't want to be invasive… Well, any more invasive than I've already been."

"No, it's alright. I've told you this much, I might as well complete the saga." Ellie seemed to gather herself and summoned all her energy (what little there was). Mark settled into the couch fixed his eyes on her.

"I've always been the good child. I got good grades, and hardly ever questioned my parents. My sister's a year older, and on weekends she'd go out to questionableparties while I babysat, went to my youth group, or did other equally mundane and adult-pleasing things. Around freshman year of high school, I started getting really depressed. Imanaged to keepmy grades up, but I was miserable. I don't know what made me think of cutting as a way to deal, I just remember coming home from youth group one night and thinking the only way I'd feel better is if I could just _bleed_. So I took a safety pin and went to town on my arm. After that… it seemed like the only logical way of dealing with things." She succumbed again to coughing, then took a shaky sip of the water.

Mark certainly remembered that feeling. Blood was beautiful. Blood fixed things, in a way that not even he had ever understood. It was cathartic. It was addictive.

He nodded at Ellie to continue.

"Finally, about six months later, my parents noticed my attitude change. They didn't know about the cutting, but apparently someone had mentioned to them that I seemed depressed so they sent me to a shrink. Didn't really help anything, except maybe it made my parents feel better. That they weren't shirking their parental duties, or whatever. The depression came and went. Any unwanted feelings? I'd just cut them away. It was a short term fix, but I wasn't in the position to recognize that."

Mark was amazed at how perfectly she was describing those same feelings he had always fought to hide from his family and friends. Especially from his best friend, Roger. It was why most people were unfamiliar with cutting. Drugs, alcoholism, eating disorders, those were things people knew (in theory) how to deal with. Or at least they'd heard of them. There were support groups, like Al-Anon, and therapy techniques. But cutters worked so hard to internalize their feelings, to protect those around them and (in their eyes) to protect themselves, that if by chance a person found out about the issue they rarely knew how to help.

Elisha's labored and gaspy breaths brought Mark out of his introspective reverie and he moved toward her, fumbling for a way to help. She put up a hand to stop him, took another drink and a deep breath, and pressed on with her story.

"Finally, during sophomore year, I found someone I trusted enough to open up to. Actually, it was more that she noticed I was depressed and she kept pressing me to tell her what was wrong. She seemed genuinely concerned, so I finally relented. First person I ever told about the cutting. She is… was… in my youth group with me, her name is Ashlie. At first, she was great. She was sooo supportive. Had she come into my life any other time, it probably would have been helpful. But at that point, I was so far gone. I was cutting more than I ever had before. Every day, sometimes every few hours. No matter how much Ashlie supported me, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't seem to stop."

Ellie paused to sip her water. She was shaking again, and seemed to be having difficulty even speaking.

"Do you want to stop?" Mark asked, concerned. "Maybe you should rest. Or maybe we should take you to a clinic or something."

"I'll rest- later-" Ellie half coughed/half gasped out. Mark waited a full minute while she struggled to control her breathing enough to tell more of the story. He was also contemplating how long they had until Roger inevitably woke up, or more of the gang came by the loft. Hopefully they were all tired from being out till the wee hours of the morning. If Roger or anyone else appeared too soon, Ellie might never finish telling Mark the events that led up to her near-demise in a grungy Alphabet City alley. Then again, at the rate her health was creeping up on her, she might not finish anyway, regardless of her audience.

"One night, about a month, maybe two, after I told Ashlie my 'secret,' we were at youth group. We were meeting at someone's house. I needed to cut, or at least I told myself that I needed to. I told Ashlie I was going to my car; I'd be right back. Looking back, I guess I wanted her to know where I was. I wanted her to stop me. She had to know what I was planning on doing. She followed me, but not soon enough. By the time she climbed into the passenger seat, I was already pressing a bloody tissue to my arm. She started crying. That was the first time I realized that I was hurting more than just myself with this stupid habit. I started crying, too. And she held me, and said she would always be there for me."

At this point, Ellie's voice had diminished to a whisper and she was trying to conceal from Mark the tears tracking down her cheeks. Mark was patient, probably one of the qualities that made him a good filmmaker. He waited her out, and moments later she cleared her throat, ready to talk again.

"About two weeks later, after the car incident, I got into a really big fight with my father. I don't even remember now what we fought about, but I was so angsty. I wanted to die. I called Ashlie, around 10:00 at night, but she was already asleep. I cut and cried myself to sleep. A few days later, we were at dinner with some other friends. I took her aside and told her what had happened, apoligized for cutting but explained that I _had_ tried to call. But she wasn't supportive. She was defensive and belligerent. She told me that she was 'too young' to be dealing with my problems, and that she couldn't help me if I wouldn't help myself. She didn't seem to understand that I _was_ trying.

"So I bolted. There was no way that I could deal with that, I felt so betrayed. I wandered around for a good twenty minutes before I found myself in this bathroom at some grungy café. I was looking for something, anything, to cut with. Then suddenly, like magic, I look down and there's this needle on the bathroom floor. I wasn't thinking anymore, I was on total autopilot. I picked the needle up, held it to my skin, and pressed down. And dragged. I was fine then. I had the blood, had what I needed to calm down enough, pull myself together and get home. I didn't realize then how dumb a move I had just made."

Ellie gave a strangled laugh that came out sounding more like a sob. Mark looked at her incredulously. He now knew where this was going, and it pained him more than any other aspect of this girl's heart-wrenching story.

"I totally forgot about it after awhile. I started to feel better. My depression slowly ebbed, until I almost felt like a normal person. I made new friends, in youth group and at school. But I never told anyone about my problems again. I was protecting them, and protecting myself. I avoided Ashlie. I was all set to graduate after my junior year. And then I started to get sick. A lot. Chronic cough, flu like symptoms on and off, and so on. The doctor's couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. Still, I didn't attribute it to anything. I graduated, and I started off at NYU. I loved it there. I felt like I was escaping all of my demons from high school, and of course my parents were thrilled that their little genius daughter was in college a full year early. Then, right before Christmas break, we watched a film in my health class, which I was only taking because I heard it was an easy A. The film was about HIV and AIDS. It talked about ways the disease is contracted. Mainly through sex. And through sharing needles."

Mark shut his eyes. _How horrible. _Mark thought. He was remembering when he found out Roger was HIV, the same day they found April dead in their bathroom. It was one of the reasons he hadn't cut in such a long time. Seeing April's death, and seeing Roger's withdrawal, and knowing that Roger and Collins were fated to die from a relentless disease, had really put things in perspective for him. What was that quote again? Oh yes. _"When you don't want to feel, death can seem like a dream. But seeing death, really seeing it, makes dreaming about it fucking ridiculous."_

"It hit me like a ton of bricks. That night with Ashlie, that bathroom, the needle. I just knew I was HIV, and probably had AIDS by now too.I was reeling. I got up and left the class. I went to my dorm and stared at the wall in a daze for I don't know how long. Then my brain clicked back on. I had to leave. It was the obvious solution. I guess it goes back to the whole protecting other people thing, but there was no way I could drop that sort of bomb on my parents, and no way I would let them watch me die. So I told everyone at school that my father was very ill and I had to go home to help my mother with him. I packed one bag and I left. I didn't communicate much with my parents while I was at school anyway, and I was always the one calling them. I don't know if they even had the phone number for my dorm. So as long as I call them every couple weeks, they're oblivious. And I can do that, easily, from a payphone. So I took to the streets. I was cold and starving, but I didn't care. I knew I was going to die, I figured it didn't matter if it happened sooner rather than later."

Ellie was finished with the story, for now at least. She collapsed back into the couch, exhausted. Mark shook his head, still trying to contemplate the disasterous turns this girl's life had taken without her permission. It was too horrible a story, too much like himself, Roger, and April all rolled into one catastrophic mess. Then Mark heard noises from the next room. Roger was up.

**Author's note: Holy cow, long chapter! Wrote that all in one sitting, too. As I seem to do all my chapters. And in case anyone was wondering/cares, all of Ellie's story, minus contracting AIDS, college, and running away, is taken from my own experiences. Feedback is God. Well not really, but it is extremely appreciated. Also, the quote is a bit of an anachronism, because its from the movie Girl, Interrupted which came out in 1991. But it worked for the story, so deal.**


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